Members who are in Guernsey are going to vote on whether or not they are going to take industrial action. The ballot papers actually reached the island this week. The ballot is going to run until the 28th of February and the members are being asked to vote on whether or not they are willing to take some degree of action, whether it’s strike action or anything else similar. They are doing this to try and secure pay parity amongst other public sector workers. It’s the second time in the history of the RCN that a ballot like this has happened. If you work in a nursing recruitment agency or even in a nurse agency, then this is almost certainly going to affect you.

It’s important to know that Guernsey is an independent country. The pay in the healthcare sector is actually negotiated locally. Of course, it’s important to know that the campaign is used to secure pay parity amongst other public sector workers and that this became the case in 2017. It has continued in 2019 as part of the pay round. Two offers have been rejected by the members so far and the matter was also referred for mediation as well. This then generated a third offer. This was again, rejected because there was not a clear timetable in which to resolve the disparity between the nurses and the other people who are employed by the state.

In response to a dispute, the South East board started the industrial action process. This happened when they asked the RCN Council to see if they could be given approval to have a full-industrial action ballot. After the mediation failed, the matter was then put forward for an industrial tribunal. The tribunal would only rule the pay rise for 2019 but it would not resolve the issue regarding parity.